Fall harvest is the perfect time to start enjoying locally grown and harvested foods and stocking up for the winter 
ahead. Eating local foods that are grown in your own community not only helps your local economy and your neighbors, it also helps the environment and is generally better for you. Buying foods out of season or that aren’t found close to you means a lot of time and energy spent in shipping them from where they are grown to your grocery store and that often means they need to be loaded with preservatives so that they can last the long journey from the farm to your dinner table. Luckily there are a lot of great sources of local foods that you can take advantage of and skip all the extra stuff.
A local farmers market is usually the best place to find locally grown foods, but around this time of year even major grocery stores often stock a lot of local produce, meats, and cheeses and often at great prices. The problem is there is usually only a small window of time that you can stock up on local foods and you need to enjoy it before it goes bad. Spend a day or two cooking, and baking all that great local food and keep it in the freezer to be enjoyed later on. Instead of buying frozen meals to take to work I usually make a large batch of casserole or soup, portion it into single meals and put it in the freezer for my own frozen dinners that taste much better than the pre-portioned tv dinners you’ll find in the grocery store. You can also get all of your holiday baking done ahead of time so you can relax around the holidays a little more.
If you can’t find a farmers market or a grocery store that offers local you could always go right to the source. Contact a local greenhouse or farm and see what kind of deals you can get. A lot of places even let you come and pick your own which could be turned into a fun and educational family fall outing. The key again is making sure you don’t purchase more than you can either use right away or freeze until you need them. Most fruits and vegetables freeze better when they are already prepared into a meal or dessert.
There are some great resources for locally grown food that you can pick or purchase at the following websites; http://www.localharvest.org/, http://www.pickyourown.org/, as well as amazing tips on how to prepare, freeze, and can your own foods to make them last longer. There’s a reason squirrels are busy stocking up on food for the winter right now and that’s because this is the best time of year for gathering fresh, delicious, and home grown food.
Adapted from aboutmyplanet.com.
